Issue 43 / Fall/Winter 2011
43 / Anger & Revenge
If revenge is a dish best served cold, this is an icy feast
If revenge is a dish best served cold, the Anger & Revenge issue is an icy feast. The meanest batch of essays CNF has ever published includes a post-divorce bonfire; post-traumatic stress; an assassination attempt; a kidnapping plot; Dick Cheney, and more. Satisfaction guaranteed.
Plus, Buzz Bissinger talks about waking up angry, how he chooses his subjects, and why he feels comfortable not being objective; Ned Stuckey-French makes a case for expanding the essay canon; Anthony Aycock stretches out on the page; and Phillip Lopate gets lost in the library.
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What’s the Story #43
Last year, the provost of Southern Methodist University abruptly announced the suspension of operations at SMU Press, a cost-cutting measure. The press had an annual budget of approximately $400,000 and three employees who had worked together for years: Keith Gregory, Kathryn Lang and George Ann Ratchford.Expanding the Essay Canon, One Decade at a Time
Ned Stuckey-French, author of The American Essay in the American Century, offers ten American essays—one from each decade of the 20th century—worthy of being read, studied, anthologized and taught.ENCOUNTER: Buzz Bissinger
To many, Buzz Bissinger is best-known as the author of the 1990 best-selling nonfiction book Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team and A Dream, the result of a year-long immersion in the small town of Odessa, Texas.Rebecca v. Mr. Wonderful
It's trash day and her ex-husband, turned neighbor, is dragging the detritus of her twenty-year marriage to the curb. This calls for a beer.Wired for Fairness
She was a new client, and she was crying, tears and mascara running down her cheeks. So many people cried in my law office that I bought tissues by the case.Sequelae: The Inner War
The Greek historian Herodotus wrote about an Athenian soldier who, in 490 B.C.E., suffered no injury from war but became permanently blind after witnessing the death of a fellow soldier in the Battle of Marathon.InBirds
In 1984, when Nelson Mandela was still marking time in prison, I wrote a poem. It was a heavy poem. Something about the moon being black.Breastfeeding Dick Cheney
It’s difficult to describe my relationship with Dick Cheney—even now, after all this time.Heroes and Consequences
I imagine Andy Williamson standing on the welcome mat of my family’s house at 614 Ravenwood Drive.Research and Personal Writing
Those drawn to the writing of personal essays and memoirs may eventually discover the need to do some research.The Death Penalty, Righteous Anger or Murderous Revenge?: A Roundtable Discussion
In the spring of 2009, a business professor at Texas Tech University, where I also teach, e-mailed and asked if I’d meet him for coffee to chat about—of all things—the death penalty.The Stories I Did Not Write
If only he had not left her there in the undergrowth, next to the train tracks, for the engineer to see, her blue tongue cotted in a mouth that had only just cradled baby teeth.Of Online Anger, Puppy Dogs and Ice Cream
"What began as an innocuous addition to my writing life ended in insults, passive-aggressiveness and puppies eating ice cream."Make Mine a Double
My co-worker Charles looked over his glasses at me, Aunt-Polly style, after reading my grant application. “It’s good,” he said, “except we’ll have to change all the double spaces at the ends of sentences to single spaces.”A Sense of Power and Fearlessness
An interview with Mardi Jo Link, author of the essay "Rebecca vs. Mr. Wonderful"We’re Not All That Normal
"I think the things that make us uncomfortable or touch an area that seems unsettled are the things that we connect with on a deeper level. Everything else is just the noise that we all push through to make our lives seem normal and comfortable."